Doubts and a Dead Dane

This about how a dead Danish philosopher came to my rescue. He was kind of an odd duck—as Danes tend to be. This is how it came to pass.
One of the women students came up after class and confided, almost in a whisper, as though she were hesitant to say it, that she had—brace yourself—doubts. Gasp! My first thought is “What have I done?!?!?”
Evidently she was sharing with the girls—oops, women—in the hostel some questions that the philosophy class had stimulated. They were telling her not to doubt things. Just believe. We are supposed to believe. So, was she wrong to have these doubts and questions?
What to say….
Then the melancholy Dane, as he was called, came to my rescue.
The odd duck I refer to was Soren Kierkegaard who was writing his brilliant essays about 100 years ago. He had some aspects of genius, even though his life was a bit, um, shall we say, different?
He was raised in a Lutheran home that was very strict and even dark. You know—sort of Wuthering Heights dark, if you have read that Bronte novel. He fell in love but would never bring Regina to the altar because “he was unworthy of her.”
His dad had a secret never talked about. A sin. Though never mentioned, it dominated the mood of his youthful home. Sin was bad. You were a sinner. God was not pleased with you. All that sort of existential pain.
And Kierkegaard is acknowledged to be the founder of that movement in philosophy known as existentialism. Life, for the Christian, is wrestling with God like Jacob. Or even more, like Abraham, toiling up the mountain with Isaac—the most precious gift God gave him in his old age. The only begotten of Sarah through whom all the promises would be fulfilled. And the lad asks a question.
“Father, I am carrying the wood. You have the fire and the knife. But where is sacrifice?”
You know the answer. But how can you tell the boy he is to be the target of the knife of sacrifice? Now THAT is an existential moment. No glib theological answer is going to cut it. Can you imagine Abraham saying something like this?
“Well, son, you see God is sovereign over all things, even the things we cannot understand, for His ways are not our ways neither are his thoughts our thoughts. So God has told me to kill you. Maybe he can raise you from death, for our God is an awesome God and nothing is to hard for him. Besides, Romans 8:28 says….blah, blah, blah….”
Of course you can’t go on a theoretical excursion into the mysteries of the divine nature. The kid asked an honest question. He deserves an honest answer. No bull.
In fact, no lamb, not even a couple of birds. Say something, Father Abraham!
OK. Here goes. “God will provide the sacrifice, my son.” That may be true but you know it’s not full disclosure. You just pushed it off for an hour or two.
Now stick with me here.
Abraham is in a heck of an existential situation. Theology is nice when you are sitting around with friends having tea. But actually LIVING with a God you cannot see (no idols allowed) in real life is incredibly stressful. We all know how the story turns out. But can you imagine being Abraham?
So Kierkegaard dismissed the smug theology of Lutheran Christianity and showed what real faith demands. It’s not yawning through the Apostles’ Creed once a week. It demands wrestling with confusions that have no pat solutions. A Christian walks with God in fear and trembling.
Getting back to what I am going to say to my student.
The opposite of faith, says Kierkegaard, is not doubt. Doubting, questioning, wondering if the Gospel makes sense, is essential to robust faith. The Gospel is too good to be true. Think about it. The God who created and sustains every atom in a universe this size, cares about a speck known as planet Earth? More—he cares about a handful of bipeds who have poked their fingers in His eye? He himself becomes one of these ugly creatures? Dies for them? Makes them his beloved children and invites them to live with him forever? C’mon! This is crazy. Who wouldn’t have doubts?
The contrary of faith, the Dane said, is indifference. Faith is something you decide to embrace. It is a self-made care about these matters. It is not theory. It is the heart of your life. Am I, an individual toiling up the mountain of sacrifice, going to will myself to believe that God speaks and that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world—more, is MY savior? That is the existential question. And it must be answered in the midst of struggle, disappointment, and anguish of soul.
So I confess to her how often I go down Doubt Lane. The disciples did, too. When people were going away from Jesus and he asked the Twelve if they too were going to take off, the answer was “To whom shall we go—you have the words of eternal life.”
Nor did Jesus berate Thomas for his doubts. He gave Thomas what he needed to satisfy his understandable skepticism about a dead man come back to life.
So it’s OK to question, to doubt, for it prods one to think more deeply and in the end to worship more profoundly. The real danger is when we don’t really care any more. We just go back to the petty pleasures of life and give up wrestling with God.
The final question is not theological. It is this. Am I, a specific person in a specific time and place, walking with the God who loves me even though I cannot understand his ways?
“Where is the sacrifice, Father?” The answer is not “Shut up, I’m your Father!”
The answer is, “Come, touch my hands and my feet, and be not faithless but believing.”